Hundreds of climbers stranded on Mount Everest amid freak blizzard

The freak blizzard struck during China's Golden Week holiday, which marks the start of a busy tourist season on Mt. Everest.

Hundreds of people are still being evacuated from Mount Everest after a freak blizzard trapped climbers at a campsite in Tibet over the weekend.

Late on Sunday, about 350 hikers had reached a meeting point in Tingri, Tibet, and rescuers were in contact with another 200, reported China’s state broadcaster CCTV. One person has died.

There was no immediate update on the rescue mission on Monday, The Associated Press said.

Hikers, whose path was blocked by heavy snowfall that began on Friday, were trapped at an elevation of more than 4,900 metres (16,000 feet), according to a report from Chinese digital news site Jimu News.

Mount Everest is about 8,850 metres tall.

A hiker who made it down the mountain before the snowfall told Jimu News that people still on the mountain reported that the snow was one metre deep and had buried tents.

Hundreds of locals headed up the mountain Sunday to clear a path so that trapped climbers could come down, the Jimu report said.

According to the AP, footage filmed by a local villager showed a long line of rescuers, accompanied by horses and oxen, following a winding path carved through deep snow.